[Talk] [Fwd: Fw: Interesting Article from the Aspen Times Weekly.]

[talk@flux.org]

OK, how about this - on our previous mixed race presidents:

http://www.diversityinc.com/public/3085.cfm?gclid=CNzhvf_FwJICFQm4sgodsybvbA

We keep hearing that this year will mark the first time a major
political party in the United States nominated a woman or a Black
person as its presidential candidate. For women, that is true, but
some historians say Sen. Barack Obama, if elected, would not be the
nation's first Black president. They say he certainly won't be the
first president with Black ancestors--just the first to acknowledge
his Blackness.

Which other presidents hid their African ancestry? Well, it's not Bill
Clinton, even though the Congressional Black Caucus honored him as the
nation's "first Black president" at its 2001 annual awards dinner.
Presidents Thomas Jefferson, Andrew Jackson, Abraham Lincoln, Warren
Harding and Calvin Coolidge all had Black ancestors they kept in their
genealogical closets, according to historians.

Harding did not deny his African ancestry when Republican leaders
called on him to deny his "Negro" history. He said, "How should I know
whether or not one of my ancestors might have jumped the fence?"

Does African ancestry make these men Black? If the bar is the one-drop
rule, then yes. The one-drop rule is a historical term used during the
Jim Crow era that defines a person with one drop of
sub-Saharan-African ancestry as not white and therefore must be Black.
If that's the bar, then there have already been other Black
presidents, says historian Leroy Vaughn, author of Black People and
Their Place in World History.

[[end quote]]

There is lots of us "passing" out there with a small amount of African ancestry.

The "one drop" rule was not used in general even during Jim Crow - up
until fairly recently, New Orleans had a board that reviewed race on
birth certificates and so forth - I think that their rule was 1/8th or
more made you "colored" - you needed to be more than 7/8th non-colored
to be classified as white.  Appearance was not enough - and I believe
that there were cases where, by their calculations, white parents
could have colored children, not sure how that worked.  Or someone
would be reclassified, and so would their children, because of a
"discovery".

My grandmother once told me a story:  She was traveling - seeing the
US, during the 1920's, and she had a train ticket that allowed her to
stop and then get back on, and she stopped in New Orleans. She was
looking for something, and she asked someone for directions. This man
happened to be black - and an older white man in a white suit strode
over while he was answering her question and began hitting him with
his cane, while cursing him for having the nerve to talk to a white
woman. The poor black guy tried to defend himself by shielding the
blows - he didn't attempt to stop the old white man or take the cane
away from him.  She yelled at him to stop - and told him that she had
asked the black guy for directions. The man stopped and walked away
without an apology to her or to the man.

And I remember a man who washed dishes for my father for a short time.
(Well, so did I. When I wanted an allowance.) He claimed that the
whole civil rights movement really had been blown out of proportion -
that all they really wanted to be able to do was to have their money
accepted at all the counters where they shopped and not some of them -
that it was really bothersome to have to walk back to a black owned
restaurant if he wanted a cup of coffee. He thought that the movement
had been a success - but the ghetto in Gainesville was still cardboard
patched houses.

At the time, I was a teenager, and just didn't think he got it. In a
way, I still don't. But in a way, I do. His goal was to get to where
he had the same sort of rights as anyone else, because you can't
legislate attitude, just actions.

When I was a kid, the local ghetto was nothing but squalor. It
reminded me of the cardboard town that the Mexicans build in the
Tijuana river.  When I drive through the area, all those cardboard
patched houses are gone. In fact, the area I grew up in is fairly
mixed. and the school I went to is no longer segregated.

There is a new standard - and it has existed for long enough that
people are able to buy homes that we all thought were nice when we
grew up in them. There are decent paying jobs, and there is education
available to those who embrace it. And I think that is the point.

The dishwasher quit to open a BBQ restaurant. It was mostly take out,
and was located in a place where anyone of any color would be
comfortable patronizing it. But if you wanted the good, spicy sauces,
you had to call ahead and order with a "ghetto accent" because they
discriminated - the when a white man ordered spicy, he got medium.  It
was a black owned place and they were just trying to fill their market
- as the best BBQ in town - and they generally knew that they had two
markets. If you wanted what they served to a black person as spicy,
you had to order ahead and "pass" or (and I did this a couple times)
walk in and order it "black hot".  They'd smile at you and if they
knew you, they'd make it spicy.

The formula must have worked for him, the restaurant stayed open for
more than 20 years.

-- 
A man can't live in the everglades
Where a man can hide and never be found and have no fear of the bayin' hound
But he better keep movin' and don't stand still
If the skeeters don't get him then the gators will